{"id":4784,"date":"2009-06-30T20:45:17","date_gmt":"2009-07-01T04:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4784"},"modified":"2009-07-05T20:19:15","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T04:19:15","slug":"black-rain-ridley-scott-1988-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4784","title":{"rendered":"Black Rain (Ridley Scott, 1988): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed on iReel streaming<\/p>\n

\"black_rain\"I’m going to step back and revisit a blast from my past with this review.\u00a0 I remember being a big fan of Ridley Scott’s Black Rain<\/em><\/a> when it came out, a time when I was too young to have actually been watching it!\u00a0 So I’m risking tarnishing an old memory now that I’m (hopefully!) a more astute and cultured viewer. \u00a0 Thankfully, while it certainly doesn’t inhabit the same hallowed ground as Scott’s masterpieces, this is a great looking, though sometimes fairly dumb, member of the 80s buddy-cop genre.<\/p>\n

So, what do you need for a buddy-cop film?\u00a0 Well, first of all you need your wildcard, rebellious, no-time-for-authority detective.\u00a0 Here we have Nick Conklin, played by Michael Douglas.\u00a0 He rides a motorbike, so right there we know he’s edgy!\u00a0 He needs a partner of course–someone a little more straight-laced, honest and na\u00efve.\u00a0 Black Rain gives us two for the price of one, with Andy Garcia playing his partner Charlie, and Ken Takakura playing their Japanese liaison Masahiro.\u00a0 Then we just need to have him accused him of a crime he didn’t commit (as opposed to those he did) and provide a psychotic villain for him to apprehend.\u00a0 Throw in a token love interest and you have an 80s cop film.<\/p>\n

The specifics of this story involve two New York cops who end up in the middle of a Yakuza hit–one that conveniently occurs in the restaurant where they are taking their lunch break.\u00a0 The killer is caught, but people in high places demand his extradition to Japan, and Nick and Charlie are assigned to escort him home. \u00a0However, the language barrier means that they end up handing the gangster back to his own men instead of the Japanese police.\u00a0 Already under suspicion of corruption back in New York, Nick can’t leave without clearing his name…<\/p>\n

So, what sets this film apart from its lesser counterparts?\u00a0 The first thing is its director.\u00a0 Ridley Scott has given us classics including Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise and Gladiator.\u00a0 His trademark is his ferocious attention to the visuals in his films, and that careful eye is certainly in attendance here.\u00a0 It isn’t his best work, but Scott’s second (or even third, fourth or fifth) best is enough to lift this film above many of its contemporaries.\u00a0\u00a0 From the grimy, car filled streets of New York to the tidy yet hectic sidewalks and clubs in Japan, Scott’s eye for detail is evident, with each scene revealing a world of information about its inhabitants without anyone having to say a word.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there is the story.\u00a0 While, as I said above, it does hit all the buddy-cop buttons, it approaches them in a different way.\u00a0 There are far fewer action sequences in this film than you might see in something like Lethal Weapon.\u00a0 Instead we get to spend time watching the characters interact, something that is essential for them to develop, and for the difference between the Americans and the Japanese to be illustrated. In many ways this film has more in common with The French Connection than with Die Hard. True, most of the differences are based on sweeping generalizations and cultural stereotypes, but the fact that they are explored, rather than simply used to define the Japanese as ‘the other’, gives this film a leg up on the rest of the crowd.<\/p>\n

The cast members also acquit themselves well.\u00a0 Douglas and Garcia are fun to watch and Takakura provides a good counterpoint with his quiet, thoughtful presence.\u00a0 Even love interest Kate Capshaw manages not to infuriate and annoy, with a performance that leaves her shrill Temple of Doom routine far behind her.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day though, the film is simply a lot of fun.\u00a0 You won’t come away with questions about the very nature of humanity, or a new appreciation of feminism, but you will have a good time and, in this instance, that is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed on iReel streaming I’m going to step back and revisit a blast from my past with this review.\u00a0 I remember being a big fan of Ridley Scott’s Black Rain when it came out, a time when I was too young to have actually been watching it!\u00a0 So I’m risking tarnishing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-online-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}